Quick, Lock the Doors! - Part 2

Greetings

Just like with The Empire Strikes Back or The Godfather Part II, the sequel is here, and it kicks ass.

That's right ladies and gentleman, it's the moment you've all been waiting for: Part Deux of the life changing story of the time my Dad and his girlfriend, Dawn, came to visit us in Ulsan.

Now let's see....where were we? Ah yes...

Our boss Mrs. Ann generously offered to take the four of us on a tour of the nearby city Gyeongju.

We're pretty thankful to have such a nice boss, because without her my Dad and Dawn would have basically just seen Ulsan, and well, there's only so much time you can spend touring oil refineries and car plants.

Gyeongju was the capital of the ancient Silla dynasty and is home to many of Korea's biggest temples, ruins, and oddly enough theme parks.



It's also home to many a stone pagoda as the following picture proves.

Yep, that's one fine looking pagoda.

Here's a shot of Jo and I outside the Bulguksa temple, which was built in 528 AD and was once the most important Buddhist temple in Korea. Now-a-days it's mostly for tourist purposes but there are still a few monks running around.

Unfortunately the temple's treasures are long gone as Korea's been ransacked more times than a 711 in Detroit. Still, it was cool to visit something so old.

Here's our boss and her friend standing in front of one of the main inner temples. It's still active and both Jo and I managed to get inside to be blessed.

I prayed for world peace as that's always a good choice and it felt wrong to make my usual prayer for millions of dollars in unmarked bills in such a holy place.

The temple also has several colourful statues that serve as guards and as entertainment.

This badass is in charge of protecting the place from intruders (hmm, in retrospect I guess he should have probably been fired).

This dude just chills and plays music all day. It was interesting to see that hippies have been around a lot longer than the 1960's.

After exploring the temple, we set off to see the Seokguram Grotto in the Korean mountains.


Our boss and her friend wisely waited in the car as we made the 30-minute trek through the freezing cold to see a statue tucked away in a cave.

It was actually pretty cool but the experience was so miserable that the adventure lost most of its allure. At one point along the way I started to even doubt that there was a statue, and that it was just a joke they played on foreigners stupid enough to get tricked into climbing the mountain in the middle of winter.

But alas, the statue was real, and it was mind-blowingly fantastic. Double alas, they didn't allow photos so you will have to settle for this gem of pops and me on the hillside.



After the mountainside exploration our boss took us to a neighboring folk village. Folk villages are preserved (or in some cases simulated) villages that are designed to let people see how traditional Koreans lived. They even pay farmers and artisans to live in them for added realism.

The one we went to was pretty deserted and for the most part it was kind of broken down. The good part, though, was it was real. This was some rich dude's house back in the 1700's.

This particular building really shined some light on why the Big Bad Wolf was always so damn successful against that poor first little pig.

Seeing this ye-olde outhouse taught me that there is something out there worse than squat toilets. Jo tried to use it but thankfully I stopped her before we embarked on our first international incident.

From the folk village we made our way to a recently created holy ground (it's only ten years old) called the Ten Thousand Buddhas temple.

If you zoom in on this picture you can see that there's a lot more than just ten thousand Buddhas. Each one has a name engraved on it (and you can get one too, for a nominal fee of course) and brings the person good luck and fortune year-round.

Nothing too special here other than if you zoom in you will see that each little Buddha has a hand-made toque. Something of note is that although everything appears to be made of gold, it's all just plastic.

The temple is sort of a Disneyland of Buddhism if you will. It was definitely the most kitschy temple we've visited in Asia so far.

Thankfully alongside the plastic statues they also offered prayer chairs.


I'm thinking of trying to broker a deal with Ikea to sell these fellows back in Canada. Who wouldn't want to sit on the hand of god while they slurp up their meatloaf and potatoes each night?


Dad and I beside one of the few hundred 10 feet tall Buddhas. Try to image the same thing but with 100's of plastic Jesus Christ statues. I'm not sure if it would work. Although they probably have something like that in the States somewhere (likely Florida).



This is inside the temple where people go to pray. I wanted to climb up and see if that statue was plastic too, but common sense and the fear of a few dozen monks chasing me won out. The large crystal balls in the background were pretty neat. I kept expecting to see a gypsy walk over and rub them the whole time we were there.

Of course the true star of the temple is the massive statue that rests on the hillside beside it.

Beautiful isn't it? (And yes, it's not plastic ... or so we think.)

Here's a photo of Buddha with Dawn, or Dawn with Buddha, depending how you look at things.

We spent the majority of the day exploring Gyeongju and area, and it was one of the coolest experiences we've had in Korea.

We were really lucky to have a boss who's not only nice but really supportive and helpful. One of our friends has been waiting for 5 months for their boss to call a repair man for them, and ours not only acted as tour guide when my dad visited, but insisted on paying for everything.

Goodtimes.

Of course, no visit to Korea would be complete with out a visit to your local friendly noreabang.

How we talked my dad into going I'll never know, but we did and it was fantastic.

Here's your loyal scribe belting out a little Jerry Lee Lewis.

But here's the photo that has since become the prized treasure of my collection:


My father warbling out "Hey Jude" while Dawn tries her best to help him. Haha, now there's a sentence that I never thought I would type.

They were here for a week but it felt like only a few hours. It was so great having family around that it really reminded us how much we miss everyone at home. I never dreamt that I would travel around Korea with my Dad.

Dad and Dawn are now in China and we're back to just working and counting the days until our next vacation.

Goodtimes indeed.

Cheers

Shayne